Setting Up House

I have all the respect in the world for our household help. Philomena, our ayah (nanny), and Pratap, our driver, have done a great job showing me the ropes while I set up house.

On Sunday, I fixed the Little Guy some lunch of Easy Mac while we waited for the workers to install our window treatments. (They didn't show up as promised.) The trouble was, I didn't have any dish soap for the dirty bowl and spoon. I wasn't thrilled, but I left it on the counter dirty anyway. That's a big mistake in India! I found out how big a mistake that was the next day when Philomena, the Little Guy and I came to the flat. I went to the kitchen and noticed a swarm of tiny ants all over the dish. Of course, I freaked out and Philomena came to my rescue by drowning the ants in water. We quickly decided it was time to go to the fixed-price food market for some household supplies.

While at the market, Philomena was terrific. While I was intimidated shopping for necessities where shopkeep generally have little command of proper English, she managed the Little Guy while translating my needs into Bengali and introducing me to local brand names.

Meanwhile, Pratap was equally great in his own way. It was Pratap who immediately got on the phone with the window treatment people to figure out what happened and how to fix it. He managed to get them to install the curtains at 7:00 Monday evening.

Today, Tuesday, Pratap got people to come to install our phone. When they got to the flat at 1:00, they told us that we would need a phone to install, which we didn't have. No problem. Pratap negotiated and they agreed to return at 4:00, assuming we had a phone by then. Pratap then drove me to a store that had the right phone. (Apparently, in India the land line phone you buy must correspond with the phone company who provides your service.) There was a small problem on my end, though. The store was cash only, and I was running too low on cash! Pratap came to my rescue and drove me to an ATM.

Thank goodness Philomena was back at the flat watching the Little Guy so I didn't have to drag him on our little wild goose chase.

In a country where nothing is handed to you, our help had no problem negotiating well enough to get what we need at a decent price. I'd like to think of myself as independent, but I really do depend on these two amazing people.